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Flash from Sotheby's: Perfect Blue Diamond

A flawless 7.03 carat diamond with 58 facets, from the
Cullinan mine in South Africa will be auctioned in Geneva on May 12, 2009, as
part of the Magnificent Jewels sale by Sotheby’s.

The diamond has been rated by the Gemological Institute of
America as fancy vivid blue, the highest ranking for a blue diamond. This
diamond, no wider than a penny piece, is one of only a handful of blue diamonds
in the world. Its estimation is between $5.8 million and $8.5 million. The
original stone, which weighed 26.58 carats, was discovered last September in
the Cullinan mine in Gauteng Province, the same mine that produced the largest
rough diamond in the world, from which was cut the Great Star of Africa, which
is part of the British Crown Jewels.

Blue diamonds are the rarest of gems and a blue diamond of
this size, without a single flaw is so rare, that even only many diamond
dealers will never sell one in their lifetime. “

It took Gary Monnickendam, a fourth generation diamond
cutter, seven weeks to cut the final
stone from the rough diamond. He spent two weeks just looking at it, and then
five weeks of cutting and polishing. “I’m in a state of postnatal depression
now,” he said. “It’s like giving birth.”

Most diamonds are white, or off-white, or yellow or brown:
blue diamonds get their colour from the presence of the chemical boron. Cathy
Malins, from Petra Diamonds, which owns the mine, said: “At our mine in South
Africa we mine between two or three million tons of rock a year, but we would
be very lucky to get maybe one, maybe two blue diamonds out of that. Quite
simply we don’t know when we’ll mine another one.”

For the past three weeks the stone has been on tour, from Hong
Kong to New York by way of Paris, and is due to travel next to Geneva where it
will form the centerpiece of the Magnificent Jewels sale on May 12.

The new owner will have the privilege to name this exceptional
jewel for posterity. This person will own something that nobody else in the
world has, something that is both exceptionally beautiful and extremely rare.